manfred wrote:Hi garudaman,OK, as far as it goes, an honest answer, so I congratulate you on that. But there is a problem: You assume that because something is quite horrible it did not happen.

no, I assume that because its contradict with the Quran!

manfred wrote:We have multiple independent reports to that effect, telling us the age as well as the circumstances of this "marriage".... all wrong? Why did the scholars call them sahih? Were they wrong too?

sahih is just mean that the witness is honest, but honest isn't same with true!

manfred wrote:And at the end of the day what matters most to me is not so much what happened so long ago, let the dead judge the dead, but what Muslims BELIEVE that happened and how it rules their lives today, that is very important because it impacts on many lives.

We have a great many similar "marriages" by Muslims today, mostly in Arab countries, but also in Pakistan. So clearly Muslims generally believe this story and take it as an example.

not in accordance with the Quran is the Muslims?

manfred wrote:I think just when it comes to chat to guys like us you get a little embarrassed, lost for words and you wish this topic would simply go away. So let me ask you, would you say the same thing to your Muslim friends?

of course!

manfred wrote:OK... do you have any historical sources supporting that?

Research subsequent to the time of Maulana Muhammad Ali has shown that she was older than this. An excellent short work presenting such evidence is the Urdu pamphlet Rukhsati kai waqt Sayyida Aisha Siddiqa ki umar (‘The age of Lady Aisha at the time of the start of her married life’) by Abu Tahir Irfani.[4a] Points 1 to 3 below have been brought to light in this pamphlet.

1. The famous classical historian of Islam, Ibn Jarir Tabari, wrote in his ‘History’:

“In the time before Islam, Abu Bakr married two women. The first was Fatila daughter of Abdul Uzza, from whom Abdullah and Asma were born. Then he married Umm Ruman, from whom Abdur Rahman and Aisha were born. These four were born before Islam.” [5]

Being born before Islam means being born before the Call.

2. The compiler of the famous Hadith collection Mishkat al-Masabih, Imam Wali-ud-Din Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib, who died 700 years ago, has also written brief biographical notes on the narrators of Hadith reports. He writes under Asma, the older daughter of Abu Bakr:

“She was the sister of Aisha Siddiqa, wife of the Holy Prophet, and was ten years older than her. … In 73 A.H. … Asma died at the age of one hundred years.” [6]

(Go here to see an image of the full entry in Urdu.)

This would make Asma 28 years of age in 1 A.H., the year of the Hijra, thus making Aisha 18 years old in 1 A.H. So Aisha would be 19 years old at the time of the consummation of her marriage, and 14 or 15 years old at the time of her nikah. It would place her year of birth at four or five years before the Call.

3. The same statement is made by the famous classical commentator of the Holy Quran, Ibn Kathir, in his book Al-bidayya wal-nihaya:

“Asma died in 73 A.H. at the age of one hundred years. She was ten years older than her sister Aisha.” [7]

Apart from these three evidences, which are presented in the Urdu pamphlet referred to above, we also note that the birth of Aisha being a little before the Call is consistent with the opening words of a statement by her which is recorded four times in Bukhari. Those words are as follows:

“Ever since I can remember (or understand things) my parents were following the religion of Islam.” [8]

This is tantamount to saying that she was born sometime before her parents accepted Islam but she can only remember them practising Islam. No doubt she and her parents knew well whether she was born before or after they accepted Islam, as their acceptance of Islam was such a landmark event in their life which took place just after the Holy Prophet received his mission from God. If she had been born after they accepted Islam it would make no sense for her to say that she always remembered them as following Islam. Only if she was born before they accepted Islam, would it make sense for her to say that she can only remember them being Muslims, as she was too young to remember things before their conversion. This is consistent with her being born before the Call, and being perhaps four or five years old at the time of the Call, which was also almost the time when her parents accepted Islam.

Two further evidences cited by Maulana Muhammad Ali

In the footnotes of his Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih Bukhari, entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, Maulana Muhammad Ali had pointed out reports of two events which show that Aisha could not have been born later than the year of the Call. These are as follows.

1. The above mentioned statement by Aisha in Bukhari, about her earliest memory of her parents being that they were followers of Islam, begins with the following words in its version in Bukhari’s Kitab-ul-Kafalat. We quote this from the English translation of Bukhari by M. Muhsin Khan:

“Since I reached the age when I could remember things, I have seen my parents worshipping according to the right faith of Islam. Not a single day passed but Allah’s Apostle visited us both in the morning and in the evening. When the Muslims were persecuted, Abu Bakr set out for Ethiopia as an emigrant.” [9]

Commenting on this report, Maulana Muhammad Ali writes:

“This report sheds some light on the question of the age of Aisha. … The mention of the persecution of Muslims along with the emigration to Ethiopia clearly shows that this refers to the fifth or the sixth year of the Call. … At that time Aisha was of an age to discern things, and so her birth could not have been later than the first year of the Call.” [10]

Again, this would make her more than fourteen at the time of the consummation of her marriage.

2. There is a report in Sahih Bukhari as follows:

“On the day (of the battle) of Uhud when (some) people retreated and left the Prophet, I saw Aisha daughter of Abu Bakr and Umm Sulaim, with their robes tucked up so that the bangles around their ankles were visible hurrying with their water skins (in another narration it is said, ‘carrying the water skins on their backs’). Then they would pour the water in the mouths of the people, and return to fill the water skins again and came back again to pour water in the mouths of the people.” [11]

Maulana Muhammad Ali writes in a footnote under this report:

“It should also be noted that Aisha joined the Holy Prophet’s household only one year before the battle of Uhud. According to the common view she would be only ten years of age at this time, which is certainly not a suitable age for the work she did on this occasion. This also shows that she was not so young at this time.” [12]

If, as shown in the previous section above, Aisha was nineteen at the time of the consummation of her marriage, then she would be twenty years old at the time of the battle of Uhud. It may be added that on the earlier occasion of the battle of Badr when some Muslim youths tried, out of eagerness, to go along with the Muslim army to the field of battle, the Holy Prophet Muhammad sent them back on account of their young age (allowing only one such youngster, Umair ibn Abi Waqqas, to accompany his older brother the famous Companion Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas). It seems, therefore, highly unlikely that if Aisha was ten years old the Holy Prophet would have allowed her to accompany the army to the field of battle.

We conclude from all the evidence cited above that Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was nineteen years old when she joined the Holy Prophet as his wife in the year 2 A.H., the nikah or betrothal having taken place five years previously.

Nothing contradicts with quran, quran infact is talking about Idhaah in reference to pre-mature girls.

All the Islamic scholars agree that he married to 9 years old Aisha , so you saying it did not happened means nothing. If you say sahi hadith is actually not true, in a muslim country they will kill you on the spot for blasphemy. So you are alone here while rest of the muslim world believes he married when Aisha was sex and had sex with her when she was 9. Which is true because of so many sahi hadiths , they can not be all wrong. They have no reason to lie. So no matter how hard you try you can not get out of it.

1) Aisha's sister was 10 years older.2) She died in a known year.3) She was 100 years old when she died.

Now... let me tell you about my mate Aris who lives in Indramayu, Indonesia. Sadly his gandma died this year. She was a lovely lady who despite of her disabled hand worked all her life, even up to just a few days before she died. I asked him how old she was, and he said "eighty something maybe even over ninety!"

This may sound odd to a westerner, but I am sure than does not surprise you at all, garudaman, right?

Muslim people never cared much about birthdays and exact dates. At the time of Mohammed this was even more so... they did not even use a unified number system for years. So when we look at dates back then things get even more open-ended.

Now, very little is known about Aisha's older sister, we are not told her exact birthday, only she was 10 years older than Aisha, and that means of course more or less... The year she died may be right, again we have little to go on.

Now, as to the 100 years, how can anyone be sure of that if neither the year of birth nor the year of death are completely clear? At the time life expectancy was a LOT lower than today, and 70 would be a ripe old age, 80 an unusual occurrence, and a lot more than that virtually never happened. We know that from the many ACTUAL lifespans of people in the middle ages.

Here is a table showing life expectancy aged 50 (right column) in various times and places in history. It isays 10.7 years. That means on average people died when in their early 60s. Someone ever reaching 100 was in fact unheard of until modern times.(17 hundreds onwards)

So 100 years old? Really? I think that is just a way of saying "really old" like my friend Aris did, and not meant to be taken literally. To accept that as exactly right, we would have to reject very clear cut reports from Bukhari as well as Al Tabari. It makes more sense to suggest that in reality she was perhaps approaching 90, which would then make all the other reports also fit.

Garudaman wrote:sahih is just mean that the witness is honest, but honest isn't same with true!

Can we take it, then, that Mohammed could have been an honest man telling of his encounters with the angel Gabriel, but sadly mistaking hallucinations for fact?

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Garudaman wrote:I wouldn't think like that, because there is no age of 6 years who are sexually mature, thus that hadith proved be fabricated/at least be distorted, and also because I have never encountered the age of 9 years, which already mature sexually (QS. 4:21) & psychologically (QS. 4:6)!

The only reason that you do not accept the ahadith as true is that in your heart you know perfectly well that a 53yr old man having sexual intercourse with a 9yr old girl is totally unacceptable.

iffo wrote:But only when it comes to religion he has decided to do this dishonesty rather than being honest and fair.

manfred wrote:Now, as to the 100 years, how can anyone be sure of that if neither the year of birth nor the year of death are completely clear? At the time life expectancy was a LOT lower than today, and 70 would be a ripe old age, 80 an unusual occurrence, and a lot more than that virtually never happened. We know that from the many ACTUAL lifespans of people in the middle ages.

Here is a table showing life expectancy aged 50 (right column) in various times and places in history. It isays 10.7 years. That means on average people died when in their early 60s. Someone ever reaching 100 was in fact unheard of until modern times.(17 hundreds onwards)

So 100 years old? Really? I think that is just a way of saying "really old" like my friend Aris did, and not meant to be taken literally. To accept that as exactly right, we would have to reject very clear cut reports from Bukhari as well as Al Tabari. It makes more sense to suggest that in reality she was perhaps approaching 90, which would then make all the other reports also fit.

According to the most reliable account, he died in either 31 or 34 A.H, at the age of 250 years, during the caliphate of Uthman, at Ctesiphon.

Oh dear, this is just being silly. Obviously this is not any statement of historical fact. He was given an "honorary" long life.... like some biblical characters were.

We do not know his exact year of death:

When exactly Salman died is unknown, however it was probably during Uthman ibn Affan's reign or the second year of Ali's reign. One source states that he died in 32 AH/652 or 653 AD in the Julian calendar,[10][11] while another source says he died during Uthman's era in 35 AH/655 or 656 AD.[11] Other sources state that he died during Ali's reign.[7] His tomb is located in Al-Mada'in, or according to some others in Isfahan, Jerusalem and elsewhere.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_the_Persian#DeathAs to his year of birth Bilal Ibn Rabah says 580 AD which would make him 72 -76 years old when he died.Ammar ibn Yasir says it was 570 AD which gives an age of 82 - 86and Hamza ibn Abdul‑Muttalib claims he was born in 568 AD which means he was 84 - 88 years old when he died.

This is a proud old age for the times, and very few lived that long. So perhaps because of that we see some myths developing.

Mohammed set an example, so why are we even shy to be proud of it? He showed us that age difference is not an obstacle for marriage. He married a very young girl, but he did not consummate the marriage until it was revealed she was ready for that.

fas wrote:Mohammed set an example, so why are we even shy to be proud of it? He showed us that age difference is not an obstacle for marriage. He married a very young girl, but he did not consummate the marriage until it was revealed she was ready for that.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

fas wrote:One thing is sure... Aisha had her period by the time the marriage was consummated

2.

and she was aware what sex is all about.

3.

In other words, she consented.

Non f****ing sequitur. And you know it. Any way, prove it - but without the circular argument that we've already seen.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

There is an evil practice among the Arabs called “Mufakhazat Alzigaar”, loosely translated as the thighing of children. There is no proper English translation for this practice, simply because it is not a Western norm. Thigh is the part in humans between the hip and the knee. The nearest evil practice to thighing in English would probably be child-molesting. However, thighing is infinitely more evil than child-molesting. It is done by an adult man to a female child, with the sanction of religion. Now let us see how it is practiced on a female child and who began that evil practice. According to an official Fatwa issued in Saudi Arabia the prophet Muhammad began to practice thighing on his child-bride, A’isha when she was six years old until she reached nine years (Fatwa No.31409). The hadith which we quoted earlier mentioned that the prophet Muhammad started having real sex with A’isha ONLY when she reached the age of nine. Therefore, Muslim scholars collectively agree, by virtue of divine example, a child becomes an adult, available for sexual intercourse as soon as she reaches the age of nine. Likewise, the Shari’a allows any faithful to marry a six-year-old